Pump Up The Jam

me before the big experiment....
So I've made several allusions to it in a recent blog and conversations recently but I haven't officially come out of the closet and declared it for all to see: I am a vegan. Well, for one week only.

It's something that' s been on my mind a lot in the last few months- could I do it? Is it something I would want to do on a full time basis? Is it even practical given that I live in one of the top meat eating countries?

I set out to try this for one week and started last Saturday. My main motivation was actually laziness. When I got back into town from Romania, I couldn't be bothered going to the supermarket for a proper shop but I did manage to get to the organic supermarket which gave me the idea. They've got loads of vegetarian and vegan products so I thought I'd stock up and give this idea a whirl.

There are a couple of rules- as well as cutting out milk, cheese, yoghurt etc from my diet I can't buy anything which I know for certain has any dairy products in it. I have had a few pieces of chocolate which I know has got milk in but that has been my only concession so far.

For the first day at home everything went quite well because I didn't have to leave the house. My first day at work was a different matter and resulted in my subsisting on some bread and an apple although I headed home to a lovely stir fry. Before I set out to do this I didn't think I'd get past the 2nd day without giving in and eating cheese and I did indeed do this- I bought vegan cheese thinking I could slice it up and stick it in a sarnie but it was absolutely disgusting. A sort of light pink/grey in colour with a very weird texture, it was only today that I realised this stuff is meant only for heating and cooking with, not just putting in your sandwitches.

I might make some pizza to use the rest of it up at the weekend. I am also planning to make hummous and soup I bought a load of chickpeas to do this but so far had no time in the week to do this. Tomorrow's dinner is one of my favourite's which I've been making for years anyway- tofu in black bean sauce with pepper and noodles. Yum yum!!!! Anyone fancy dinner at my place?


me (hopefully) after a week of veganism:



Mental note to self: Must watch Wallace and Gromit at the weekend again...

Hope I Die Before I Get Old

1. What time did you get up this morning? Woke up just before 7, staggered out of bed at 7.40
2. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Borat. I am ashamed to say I laughed.
3. What is your favourite TV show? Have I Got News For You, Father Ted. Currently going through a big ER addiction, I watched most of series 6 at the weekend
4. What did you have for breakfast? Porridge
5. What is your middle name? Louise. I hate it. I want a better one.
6. What is your favourite food? I can't name just one so I'll just say Italian as that gives a nice broad spectrum
7. What is your favourite Potato Chip? Not easy to choose one but I do really like ready salted and beef and onion
8. What is your favourite CD at the moment? I can’t stop playing These Streets by Paolo Nutini at work. It is really, really fab
9. What kind of car do you drive? Don't have my license yet
10. What is your favourite sandwich? Cheese and tomato
11. What characteristics do you despise? Lateness, smelliness, laziness, arrogance
12. Favourite item of clothing? Anything comfy, pink or preferably both!!!
13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Well I’m going there in about 3 weeks- the US to see my beautiful sisters. Other than that, it would have to be to Australia to see my darling Anita. Or to Glastonbury!!!
14. What colour is your bathroom? White with blue and pink accessories
15. Favourite brand of clothing? I only buy New Balance trainers and they have to be made in the UK. I don’t seem to have too much luck with jeans that aren’t Levis- they seem to fit me very well.
16. Where do you want to retire? I refer you, the jury, to today’s blog title. In the unlikely event that I do get old, I want to go and live in some old people’s community and be a hell’s granny (copyright Monty Python)
17. Where were you born? In a hospital in London
18. Favourite sport to watch? Football or rugby. I really can’t decide. Actually the only sports I won’t watch are cricket and golf.
19. What laundry detergent do you use? Stuff from DM. It smells very nice
20. Pepsi or Coke? Coke
21. Are you a morning person or night owl? I’m too grumpy in the morning so I guess I’d have to be a night owl.
22. Do you have any pets? Do the blue tits on my terrace count?
23. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? Nah. There's not too much going on in my life right now, except the guy that tried to get me to marry his brother last week, the fact that I'm leaving my job in a few months, that I'm trying veganism for a week and had vegan cheese for my din dins tonight...
24. What did you want to be when you were little? Really tiny- I thought it might be pretty cool to be a waitress or a hairdresser.
25. Favourite candy bar? Galaxy chocolate from the UK
26. What is your best childhood memory? Looking for fossils with my dad and brother when I was about 5 on holiday somewhere in Spain one evening.
27. What are the different jobs you have had? Babysitter, worked in a toy shop, worked in a DIY shop, worked in a cafeteria, did summer camp, ran a playscheme, currently a computer wizzkid.
28. Piercing? just the ears at the moment. Contemplating doing the top of myears and/or a tragus
29. Eye Color? blue
30. Ever been to Africa ? Does Tenerife count?
31. Ever been toilet papering? No- but I’ve done it to other people (sort of)
32. Love someone so much it made you cry? oh god yes. And then I promised myself never to be so silly again
33. Been in a car accident? Yes, but it wasn’t serious.
34. Croutons or bacon bits? Oh veggie bacon bits any day!
35. Favourite day of the week? Saturday. Sleep in, football, Jonathan Ross, rugby….
36. Favourite restaurant? Can’t think of one offhand but I like diner style ones
37. Favourite flower? Sunflower
38. Disney or Warner brothers? WB
39. Favourite fast food restaurant? I don’t eat fast food.
40. What color is your bedroom? White.
41. How many times did you fail your drivers test? None
42. Besides this one, from who did you get your last e-mail? I think my buddy Winston
43. What store would you choose to max out your credit card? A decent clothes shop. If I ever find one.
44. What do you do most often when you get bored? I don’t get bored. Only boring people get bored.
45. Who are you most curious about their response to this? Anyone willing to take the time to respond
46. What are you listening to right now? Ben Folds Five- Underground on iTunes (I love this song!!! I remember hearing it for the first time and thinking how cool it was)
47. What is your favorite color? Pink!
48. Ocean, River or Lake? Swimming pool
49. Which came first the chicken or the egg? The egg. It was laid by visitors from the planet Jaasdlilew.

Dirty Cash I Want You*

So even though I was terribly homesick at the end (see last posting) and all I wanted to do was get back here I did overall have a cool time, although parts of it got quite bizzare:


- Every morning and evening I walked and admired the above statue. I still have no idea who it is.

- It was very nice to be with my colleagues and see them all again- they're all so sweet and lovely. I even warmed up a lot to my least favourite one . They're all terribly sensitive though, while I was there, there were 4 crying sessions in 10 days. I get stressed at work and have a little sob every now and then but even I've never done that.

- I have learnt lots of Romanian. I can now say yes, no, and, with, for, sleep, cream, cheese, chicken, polenta, bread, soup, thank you, please, hello, goodbye, good morning, good evening, sixty and shut the fuck up you devil.

- One morning we were all in a meeting and I heard some police sirens go along the street. I thought nothing of it till we were all back in the office and I saw some people wandering over to the window. There's a construction site behind the office we're in and whilst we were in that meeting, part of a crane collapsed on top of a group of workers, killing 4 of them and seriously injuring two. For the rest of the day, the building was surrounded by police officers and TV news crews. The next day, everyone carried on like normal. Can you imagine if that was the UK or Germany? There'd be a massive investigation and work would be held up for several days whilst they ensure that everything is safe. http://english.hotnews.ro/Four-dead-in-Bucharest-building-site-articol_44129.htm

- That same day, whilst trying to cross Piata Romana (imagine something the size of Trafalgar Square) which was full of traffic as always- bumper to bumper- a police escort came by. I later found out it was Prodi of Italy in the blacked out car. Piata Romana, devoid of traffic on a Sunday afternoon



- His lordship came for the weekend. While I was at work on Friday he explored Bucharest. I think he was pleasantly surprised by the city- how friendly the people were, how cool the city is and how safe it was.

He did the one real touristy thing in the town and went here, the 2nd biggest building in the world:





At the weekend we went to the monastery at Sinai, Peles Castle (below)




Brasov, and Bran's Castle, more commonly/popularly/cashing in on a touristly known as Dracula's Castle (which despite the tacky souvenirs was actually pretty cool:





- Back home the weather struck. The first week there was a hurricane and they evacuated the office early so people wouldn't be stranded and the second week we had our first snow which came down in one great dump so people couldn't make it in to the office on Wednesday morning. Why does this stuff never happen when I am there???

- It feels like I ate my own bodyweight in cheese. Food there is so incredibly stodgy and I found it really hard to find a good variety of food. I did eat a bit of salad but even those mostly came with cheest. By the end, I was screaming for carrots, celery and apples!! The cheese could have also been responsible for my even-more-than-usual lucid dreaming. Had some very weird and sometimes distressing dreams. Have you ever woken up convinced that what you dream is real? I had the most dreadful dream in which I dreamt that a really old buddy of mine had died, and it was my first boyfriend who told me that Rob had died. I'm not sure which part of that was more distressing.... anyway Rob, if by some chance you're reading this, please get in touch, I'd love to know if you became a fully fledged alcoholic or are still practicing.

Anyway I digress. Due to the cheese situation I have decided to go vegan for a week. This means knowingly no standalone milk, cheese, butter or joghurt. In the same way that I don't go looking at the ingredients in things for no meat/fish products, I'm not actively looking for things with milk in them which means I can have a little bit of chocolate. It was pretty hard at work today- all I could eat was a plain bread roll and an apple. Moral of this story- take a packed lunch to work when going vegan!





* Sorry for today's title. I couldn't think of a proper song about an adventure or journey...

And the way I feel just makes me want to scream

I've had enough of my romanian journey. I want to go home.

Travelling With(out) Moving

Ahem. Apologies for Friday's posting. At least drunk typing is better than drunk writing- I once wrote a letter whilst extremely pissed on A4 paper to my then best friend which had about 20 words on each sheet. I still sent it though.

Anyway I am posting this from the hotel that will be my home for the next almost two weeks. I'm back in Bucharest to work from the office here and help out at a critical time of the fiscal year.

My preparation for coming away started out quite well. I sorted out my toiletries and other sundries (books, cables etc) which always takes the longest time quite early but I should have gotten up earlier on Saturday to do my washing and get it dry. Or even not stayed out late on Friday night and gone home after the second cocktail as originally planned. And maybe I shouldn't have spent so much time last night transferring my videos on to DVD and gone to bed before 1.45 But I didn't so at 6.45 this morning (after around 4 hours sleep- I kept waking up and wondering what time it was, even if it was only 3 minutes after I last checked the alarm clock) I was ironing my polo neck sweater to try and get as much wetness off them as I could but it didn't dry out until I was on the plane. My jeans were still a bit damp around the waist but I had no choice and they had to be worn.

After scooping up all the rubbish in my flat and dumping it in the bin and rinsing off the plates so that I don't come back to a colony of creatures living in my kitchen (again, things I could have done the night before) I hotfooted it down to the bus stop, to get the bus to the train station, to get the train to the airport. I checked the website last night for the bus timetable and chose one that would get me to the station with good time . Except I'd put in the wrong dates in and the bus I was expecting never arrived. So I waited for the next one which meant I missed my train and had to wait for the one.

But at least things started to get better after that. I never thought I would say this but thank god for Starbucks. It was open, quiet and provided a nice warm seat, hot chocolate and a cookie (terribly healthy breakfast) while I waited for the train. Then I ended up in a carriage chatting with a nice young chappy from Berlin who's moving to Stuttgart in a couple of weeks to take up a job with the train company. He asked me what the gay scene was like in Stuttgart but it was only afterwards that I wondered why he should ask me that given that we'd met half an hour before. Did I look particularly lesbian like today? I wasn't looking my best but nobody does with only around 4 hours sleep. Maybe it was the fact that I was wearing my naughty elephants t-shirt. I should have realised he was gay when he told me how devastated he was when Princess Diana died.

The rest of the journey went smoothly after that- although the airport was in chaos due to these securtiy measures- and i fell fast asleep on the plane before we'd even taken off. So even though it's only 8pm here (an hour ahead of Germany and two compared to the UK) I am not planning on staying up too much longer.


And I've managed to pack two scarves despite the fact it is about 12 degrees and I was able to wander around earlier in only a long sleeved t-shirt cos it's so fecking warm

Oh what a night

Thiese friday evening after work girly cocktail evenings are turning evilly birlliant:

tonight we had Rachelle, Nats, her housemate, Catherine the Great andKeira show up. WE ended up danicing on the sides of the bar and wrote Stuttgart Rubvyg whilst holding on to the low ceiling. Which is apparently very sexy

It is the only time I have heard Block Party Banquet (no 13 oin my to p 25 most played list on itunes. played 58 times) played in Deutshcland and it was sehr gut/. And they playedlots of cheesy 80ss stuff and I like to move it mixed in with flat beat by mr oizo. So all in all a good night.

And i kept one opf my new years resolutions hich was not to waste time speaking oto uttter twats.





Apoligies for the spelling erros but am too piseed to correct them

That Joke Isn't Funny Any More

This HAS to be a wind-up:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6244153.stm

Hot Tramp I Love You So

Get out your party hats, streamers, the birthday cake and let's start celebrating- David Bowie is 60 today.


I love David Bowie. Not almost as much as Paul Weller or Billy Bragg (Jill Sobule- if you ever get to read this, I was the drunken fan in Germany a few years ago who told you that Billy Bragg was my 3rd favourite man in the world after Paul Weller and David. You'll be pleased to see that Bill has moved up a notch, I'm sure) but quite a lot.


If you ignore his appearance in Labyrinth in the mid 1980's, I first got into him and his music through my cousin Matt. I was round his house when he was about 5 0r 6 and we were upstairs playing in his bedroom when he suddenly announced in quite an authoritive voice, "Do you want to listen to David?" and proceeded to put one of his tapes in the cassette recorder. He proceeded to sing along in his little voice to Starman and I was smitten. A couple of weeks later I had a copy of his Single Collection.

This is a brilliant collection- it's got all the hits covering the time period from 1969 (when Space Oddity became a huge hit) to ca. 1986 (up to Absolute Beginners) plus a couple of songs that have become very poplular. If you're looking for a good start then this is the place to go. Then, if you like the 'slightly-odd-but-still-listenable' stuff on that I'd recommend Low. It's the sound of a man entrapped in a late 70's cold war, bleak Berlin, trying to wean himself off heroin in the company of Iggy Pop. No wonder I enjoy listening to it at work... And his version of Heroes recorded in German around this time ('Helden') is a real treat

A cautionary word. My love for 'The Dame' is a grown up one which means that even I can recognise when something is dross and his back catalogue. Let's put it this way: he's not one of those artists that I am going to try and collect everything they've released. Recent albums and a couple from the 70's have had a couple of stonking tracks on them but on the whole are regarded as 'not that great'. For example- I'm Afraid Of Americans is a brilliant song that sounds 100X mega when played live. But do I really need to buy Earthling (the drum and bass album)? I think not.

I've been lucky enough to see him twice, and I hope to see him many, many more times in the future. The last time I got about 7 rows from the front and he came and sang 'Hello Spaceboy' and 'Let's Dance' right in front of me- I almost passed out I was so excited. He sings 'Under Pressure' with his bassist, Gail Ann Dorsey which sounds incredible and his pianist plays divine melodies.


If this has whetted your appetite for things Bowie related check out 60 facts about him on the BBC's website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6230201.stm or check out these songs on iTunes or your o

My Favourite Bowie Songs
1. Ashes To Ashes (has given me one of my favourite ever lyrics "I've never done good things/I've never done bad things/ I've never done anything out of the blue
2. Jump They Say
3. Rebel Rebel
4. Young Americans
5. Changes




And you know what? Even though I've had "I'd rather babysit than be a nurse" (copyright Ivana Trump) as my signature on MSN and some other things recently, I still sooooooooooooooo would.

You Fancy A Drink, Just The One (or 7)

The worst thing about going out on the lash is waking up stupidly early the next day. It's 11 on Saturday morning and I've already been up for a couple of hours because I couldn't sleep any more. It might actually have been a good thing to get up early for once on a Saturday and get things done in town but today is a bank holiday so everything is shut till Monday now.

Oh well. At least I won't have any excuses if the christmas tree is still up tomorrow, the washing and ironing hasn't been done and my flat completely cleaned.

Whilst out last night with La Rachelle, Nats and Nats' new flatmate, I mentioned this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/6232547.stm) news story I'd seen on the BBC website. It's the sweetest thing I've read this week and I had tears in my eyes reading it in the office yesterday.

All Is Calm On New Year's Day

A little bit later than planned due to laziness

Cool Things That Happened in 2006 (in no particular order)
- The World Cup!!! The football wasn’t great but the atmosphere and mood in Germany throughout was totally brilliant. The Trinidad and Tobago vs Paraguay game was so much fun, me, the boyf and Dobbo had a brilliant time and they're now my second favourite international team after Ireland
- Winning the rugby second division title with my team.
- Having a brilliant time in general (beerfests, watching games in the pub) with my dear friends from rugby all of whom are just fantastic.
- Seeing Paul Weller twice- in concert on his own and at the V festival
- Seeing Paolo Nutini, Fatboy Slim, Matisyahu, The Dub Pistols with Terry Hall at the V Festival

Not –so-cool Things
- The boyfriend’s grandfather passing away
- Not leaving my job when I should have done (although this has it's upside. I've reaslised last month that I'm actually pretty lucky wiuth

New places I went to in 2006
Rome
Trier
Bucharest
Wales
Passau, Straubing, Regensburg and Bechtesgadenerland (will post photos shortly- we did this last week)

Cool Things That Will Happen in 2007
- I will decide what to do with my life and taking steps to getting there.
- Continuing to have a fantastic time with my friend from rugby, starting this Friday
- I will become a good rugby player, I will try my hardest to score another try and I will pull off a dummy in a game successfully. And we will beat HRK!
- This also means getting fit and losing the weight and Christmas bulge I put on. Swimming starts tomorrow.
- Glastonbury!!!
- Visiting my family in the US. I cannot wait to see my baby sisters
- Getting married to Paul Weller
- Seeing the Scissor Sisters in April
- Japan???
- Australia???
- Surferbill and Dew's wedding